Many restaurants must prepare a high volume of food relatively quickly. Eggs and various types of egg sandwiches are common breakfast foods that are served at many such restaurants, where a large volume of such items needs to be prepared relatively quickly, particularly at breakfast. Since a high volume needs to be prepared quickly, labor requirements can be substantial, particularly for the high volume periods of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
It is desirable to use fresh whole eggs, particularly for sandwiches and food items that require a whole fried egg, for example, such as a fried egg sandwich or an EGG MCMUFFIN® sandwich. Consequently, fresh eggs must be individually cracked, shelled, and cooked. Shelling individual eggs takes time and can be labor intensive if a large quantity of shelled eggs is needed over a relatively short period of time during breakfast, for example. Furthermore, it is not desirable to cook individual whole eggs substantially in advance of serving to customers, as the desirable organoleptic qualities of cooked eggs degrade relatively quickly after cooking. In addition, it would be desirable to separately cook a plurality of individual whole eggs on a single grill surface for substantially the same amount of time to help ensure consistent product quality and uniformity.
Flavor characteristics and taste sensations of breakfast foods and sandwiches are important factors consumers use to evaluate a product. It is important for consumer satisfaction that consumers receive cooked eggs that are of a consistent quality.
In view of the foregoing, there exists a need for a device and method that will allow a plurality of discrete whole eggs to be placed in a segregated manner on a cooking apparatus at substantially the same time. A need further exists for a device and method for reducing the labor intensity required at breakfast for individual shelled eggs while maintaining egg product quality and not requiring that eggs be cooked substantially in advance of serving to customers.
A need further exists for a method of cooking eggs to ensure product uniformity.